I recently replaced the motherboard and CPU on my PC (ASUS Z77 Sabertooth, Intel i7 3770K) and completely reinstalled Windows 7, 64-bit. I use Google Chrome for web browsing, and for a while everything worked fine. Then I had to install the "other browsers" version of Flash, and YouTube videos became incredibly glitchy; they will always experience one of three errors:

Randomly restart.

Randomly turn green, emit loud crackling (like a bad CD player skipping), and skip ahead in small increments until the video ends. The recommended videos appear as normal.

Randomly get stuck buffering, and then display the recommended videos and replay button as if the video were done.

Things I tried to fix this, in no particular order:

Restarting my PC.

Reinstalling Flash.

Uninstalling Flash and letting the Chrome built-in version take over again.

Disabling various combinations of Flash in chrome://plugins.

Reinstalling Chrome.

Using Internet Explorer.

Deleting Flash Player browsing data.

Removing the Flash Player Cache.

Disabling Flash hardware acceleration.

NONE of these things have helped my problem. The only thing that has temporarily alleviated the problems was reinstalling windows again (yes, I completely reinstalled Windows to try to solve this problem). And then a Steam game I installed downloaded Flash without me realizing it, and the problem started all over again. I don't want to reinstall Windows again.

The only indication I can see of a problem is that Flash is telling me I have a 32-bit OS when I have a 64-bit OS, but I don't think that's actually a problem. Chrome, Flash, etc. are all up to date.

Because I frequently unwind with YouTube videos, my PC is effectively useless due to this problem. It's really, really frustrating. Can anyone help me?

Edit: I opted into the HTML 5 trial for YouTube and the problem seems to not happen on videos using HTML5, but it can't be used on videos with ads, even with ad block (which I normally have disabled on YouTube anyway). I also tried disabling my firewall after a friend suggested this, which didn't help either.

First, I'm sorry you're running into problems. Thank you very much for posting all this info, it's very helpful to have complete information like this. I suspect the timing around the problem occurring and when you installed the plugin version of Flash Player was coincidental. Chrome uses it's own built in version of Flash Player that is completely separate from the version you installed.

When you changed versions of Flash Player in Chrome, did you verify that the version was different by right clicking on the video being displayed? Green in video usually indicate a driver issue. In your screenshot, is hardware acceleration enabled or disabled?

Could you try reverting back to Flash Player 11.2 (or 10.3) to see if this continues to happen?

You're probably right about installing the new version of Flash being coincidental. I just reinstalled Windows 7 again and the problem is occuring in Chrome without the plugin, albeit less frequently. The problem happened in IE and Firefox as well, so it can't just be a problem with Chrome's version, I would think. I can't yet verify that the version is different when I change versions in Chrome because I haven't installed the plugin again yet.

Yes, that screenshot is with hardware acceleration disabled. I should perhaps mention that the video flickers between green and odd, distorted patterns; the crackling sound I mentioned seems to be tiny, distorted snippets of the video's actual audio. Also, when I skip to another position in the video, if it is a position where the video was working when I watched it, the video works well again. However, if I skip to a position in the video where it was broken, it is broken again. Refreshing the page is generally the only solution. Finally, the video will also stop to buffer sometimes, and then just restart from the last position buffering started at (either the beginning or a position I skipped to previously).

All in all, it seems like portions of the video buffer are becoming corrupt. YouTube remains the only thing I have these issues with; for example, online games and other video sites seem to have no issues.

I will try reverting my Flash Player to a previous version to see if this helps, and try to get back to you tomorrow. The problem sometimes happens infrequently enough that I need to watch 20 minutes or so of video before it occurs.

I am having the very same issue. I have the latest version of Flash (as of writing this, 11.4.402.278) and the latest driver for my Intel HD Graphics card (this is an Acer Aspire M3910 desktop box, VGA driver version 8.15.10.2827 the date I see is 2012.07.31.). I tried unistalling Flash using the uninstaller tool (removed all remaining files as described in the instructions), then disabled the built-in Flash plugin in Chrome using chrome:plugins, reinstalled the latest Flash version. I also tried switching betwen the built-in Flash plugin of Chrome and the Adobe one I installed. I tried both with hardware accelaration off and on.

None of the above has helped.

I do not think it is a hardware problem, because

1. It used to work before, no changes have been applied hardware-wise (driver upgrade or anything like that)

2. A friend of mine started having the very same problem on the same day on an entirely different hardware configuration

Previously I was using the version from my install CD, updated to the latest version through its software update feature. The problem exists either way. Also note that my system can handle the latest games perfectly at maximum settings; if I had video driver issues I doubt this would be possible.

After downgrading to Flash 10.3, the problem still exists but behaves differently. Rather than strange colors and skipping, the video image simply freezes and video sound stops or has occasional crackling/distorted snippets. The timer for the video keeps progressing at a normal rate.

I'm certainly no expert, but this really doesn't seem like a driver issue to me. It seems more like a portion of the video buffer is becoming corrupted in memory and just won't play.

Anyway, at least I'm not so alone anymore. This is a very strange issue that seems to be very rare.

Adam, could you open a bug report on this at http://bugbase.adobe.com. Please include all of the info from your first and second posts, along with the additional troubleshooting steps you've taken. Once added, please let me know the bug number and I'll forward this to our video team to investigate (they hadn't seen this reported before).

The bug report is 3335102. I included as much information as I could- I apologize if it is too much. Because it might have something to do with a hardware driver I included a lot of information about my system.

but we've been unable to reproduce this. The stream that you provided worked fine and we ran it eight times all the way through. Could there be anything else on your system that we should be aware of? Any chance you could try another video card or use the built in Intel HD GPU?

Both are still have factory hardware and have the latest updates for windows and have all the latest drivers for everything. i have tried everything in this post and on the support site but nothing works even tried chrome and it still does it with chrome . i have talked with several friends and WOW buddies and all seam to be having the same prob. but all of them are to lazy to report it, which i bet is happening with a bunch of people lol, but they all have tried everything i have and still have the problem. with me and a few others youtube only plays half of the vids we try to watch and half of them stop working in the middle. usually i get a white screen or it will pop up " need to install flash" or "update to the latest version of flash " or something to that extent. i think the only thing i havnt tried was reinstalling windows , which im not going to do, to much of a hassle. it will also do it when i try to watch movies on xfinity, so i know its not just happening on youtube.

First of all, I appreciate your efforts and thank you for your time. If it helps, I have discovered a shortcut for determining if each video has a problem. I can actually just pause the video, let it buffer, and try skipping to the end. If the end of the video is corrupt (green, usually), I reload the buffer (by switching quality back and forth). If the end is not corrupt, then the video is always good to watch.

"Anything else you should be aware of?" Maybe? I have had a little bit of (minor) trouble with the networking on this motherboard. First of all, on a fresh install of Windows it actually can't connect to the internet until I install the driver included on the CD ("Intel PROset for Windows Device Manager, and advanced networking services"). I then used the internet to update the network driver to its latest version. Secondly, I once installed the "ASUS AI Suite II" from the install disk, and that (specifically iControl, which is terrible and many people have problems with) really messed up my networking again until I disabled it. I also reinstalled Windows after that and have not touched the AI Suite since. This does make me wonder if it is a network issue, but things like large downloads and online games seem to work fine.

I do have the two video cards in my system, but no other ones. Moving those around is a pain and can really upset Windows, but I can probably try swapping them this weekend. I already tried disabling CrossFireX which should have the same effect as removing one of the cards. Using the built in GPU also sounds like a pain for several reasons but I may try that this weekend as well. And again, I understand that we're mostly just trying to narrow down potential problems, but the cards handle much more stressful activities easily.

Oh, and thank you MrX1980, I'll see if updating directx 9 helps.

Edit: Updated directx9 with the link you provided, restarted, and the problem still exists.

Hi Chris, I tried what you suggested (clean uninstalled Flash Player and reverted back to 10.3 by following the instructions). I no longer experience the video going green and audio glitches, it now simply stops (freezes) after a few seconds Moreover, now I have to enable Flash every time I try to watch a video, because Chrome says "Adobe Flash Player was blocked because it is out of date. [Update plug-in...] [Run this time]".

I know three people in our office experiencing the same problems, all with different hardware configurations and the latest drivers / browsers / Flash player installed.

If you have 10.3.183.25 (Released 9/18/2012) installed then it is a false alarm from Google Chrome (in my opinion).

You should contact Google.

"Note: Although not recommended, if you don't want Google Chrome to notify you when a plug-in is out of date, use the command line flag--allow-outdated-plugins. Instructions on how to add a command line flag can be found on ourChromium site."

Unfortunately I still haven't had the time to actually experiment with different video card arrangement (I hope you understand, I'm very busy with work and that could take a few hours and could potentially mess up my Windows configuration), but I've found some more symptoms of the problem that I'd like to mention. First of all, I'd like to correct what I said about the problem only applying to YouTube. The video player that Steam uses (for example, the video at http://store.steampowered.com/app/200260/) has virtually the same problem that YouTube does. Maybe others do as well but I haven't tested any others really.

Also, I've found something else that doesn't work that shows more evidence that this really isn't a video card/driver problem. I have problems with the site http://www.speedtest.net/, which also runs off of Flash. When I reach the portion of the test that measures my download speed, I will frequently get the message "Download Test Error: Download test returned an error while trying to read the download file." Sometimes the test works well, however, and http://pingtest.net/ shows excellent ping and no packet loss every time I try it.

It seems like files that I am downloading through Flash are becoming corrupted. Perhaps this is a networking problem? Some problem with my network driver and Flash's FTP? Is there another way to test for this?

It just disables the warning, so I do not have to enable the outdated plugin each time. The playback issues are less frequent with 10.3: videos still freeze sometimes after a few seconds, but only occasionally, and no more green video/audio glitches appear.

By the way, I experienced the green screen issue on Vimeo as well, not only Youtube.

I had to completely uninstall the program before Flash 10.3.183.25 would work properly without these, indeed, strange freezes. "the video image simply freezes and video sound stops or has occasional crackling/distorted snippets"

Now i can finally watch flash videos again on both Youtube and Vimeo. And i have hardware acceleration enabled.

I do not have Comodo firewall; I actually have ESET Smart Security (NOD32 anti-virus + firewall). However, I tried uninstalling it anyway and tested a number of YouTube videos as well as speedtest.net. I can confirm that all problems, as far as I can tell, are now gone. Both Flash 10.3 and Chrome's built-in flash installation work as I expect them to.

At one point I tried disabling the firewall and the problem still existed. However, every time I have tested the issue I did in fact have ESET installed; I never thought that might be causing the issue and thought it was best to always have my anti-virus and firewall installed before surfing the web.

Thank you very much for finding the problem! This has been driving me absolutely crazy. I don't know what I would have done without you bringing this to my attention.

As it turns out, my license for ESET expires tomorrow and I received a free copy of Kaspersky anti-virus with my recent hardware purchases (the installation of which caused this problem to appear in the first place). I guess I will be installing that now and seeing if that works any better. It's a shame, because ESET has otherwise worked flawlessly for me over the past 2 years.

-Rognik/Adam

PS: After this I realized that my PC might not have the most recent version of ESET Smart Security (4 instead of 5). I tried installing the newest version from their website and the problem immediately returned. I will try Kaspersky Anti-Virus + Windows Firewall (ugh) for now. Based on recent reviews of ESET Smart Security 5 it may be a good idea to switch to another security suite anyway.

I am also looking for a new firewall, now temporarily using Windows Firewall (ugggh indeed) until i find a proper replacement or when the issues gets bug fixed.

Just playing around with and testing http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost/index.php . I also wonder how Kaspersky Firewall performs. But it's good to know i should avoid Eset Firewall as well. I have a license for the Antivirus programme, and i can at least confirm the antivirus programme is not conflicting any of my programs.

Adobe Staff Member Jerome Clark posted they are forwarding the issue to Adobe Test Labs. I replied again and also pointed him to your thread. So i hope they find out how the NOD32 Firewall Service and Comodo Firewall Service are affecting/conflicting flash.

Both programs install a service which keeps being active even if you disable the firewall. Thats why uninstalling really only disables the programme. For me Comodo was also the last option, i never though it would be the problem.

I feel like a kid playing with his new toy. I have been watching films on vimeo all day now for the first time in months without any problems. I feel so happy. :-)

Hi Rognik , you should uninstall microsoft silverlight because i had the same problem since 3 weeks..This Microsoft SilverLight affect online movies (maybe) or are incompatible with them. After i unistalled it, at least in Internet Explorer I don't have anymore problems of Incompatibility. Have a nice day and i hope this helped you. Reply me if you resolved !Thanks